Dear Wally
by IronicVeghead
Summary: [I can't kiss you and say goodbye. Nothing. And I want to hate you for it. I want to hate you for leaving me. For not saying goodbye. For making promises that you can't keep. I want to hate you. But all I can do is miss you.] A series of letters written by Artemis to Wally after he disappears in the artic. Forewarning: Very sad, but no tragic ending. Spitfire. Oneshot.


**I want to say that I'm sorry about writing this. But I'm really not. Once I thought of the idea I couldn't not write it. I will admit, it was difficult, I cried a lot while I wrote this. Its pretty heartbreaking, but it has a happy ending because I don't' know how to not have a happy ending, it would just break my heart. **

**So here we go, I know this is heartbreaking but just read it to the end, okay? **

**(Also P.W. means Post Wally)**

* * *

Day 11 P.W.

Dear Wally,

I don't like doing this. I think its dumb and it's only going to make me cry more. But Zatanna insisted and she says that it helps her to write to her father. It's not the same though. No one seems to understand that. Giovanni is still around. If she's really desperate she can at least _see _him. I don't have anything. You left me with nothing. And I'm not really sure yet if I can forgive you. I can't even cry over your….I can't close your eyes and watch them take you away. I can't kiss you and say goodbye. **Nothing**. And I want to hate you for it. I want to hate you for leaving me. For not saying goodbye. For making promises that you **can't**_ keep. _

I want to **hate** you.

But all I can do is miss you.

Day 15 P.W.

Dear Wally,

I started getting cards in the mail today. Sappy, pastel colored monstrosities that keep putting into words that I can't hold you again. M'gann came over and she stopped me from putting them through the shredder. Apparently I'm not allowed to check my own mail anymore. She wants to make a scrapbook or something equally as diabolical. She's not the only one who visits, though. I feel like an animal in a zoo. People just stopping by to watch me, see if I do anything particularly destructive or interesting. I want to leave, just to run away from their pitying eyes and their constricting hugs. But I know someone would hunt me down. And I don't want to leave Nelson.

Dick is the only one I can stand being around. But he doesn't know that I know he's there. Sitting diligently on the roof every third night. But I can hear him humming. Its a melancholy tune but I don't think the world deserves any less without you here.

Day 19 P.W.

Dear Wally,

The memorial was yesterday. I would have written but I couldn't see. I think, objectively, that it was beautiful. It had lots of quotes from your favorite scientists and everyone had something nice to say. I was supposed to give a speech, but I didn't. I thought the whole thing was horrendous. Barry spoke the most, but everyone said the same thing. They all talked about how great you are were, how smart and brave. People kept bringing up how horrible it was to lose you, but how spectacular you are were to save the world at "such great cost".

No one seems to think that the world isn't worth saving without you in it.

But I do.

Day 24 P.W.

Dear Wally,

Dinah started making me come visit her twice a week when Zatanna tattled that I haven't been eating as much as I usually do. She thinks that I'm "wasting away" but I don't think that has anything to do with my lack of appetite. Dinah's trying to be tactful but she keeps using phrases like "moving on" and suggesting that I pack some of your things away. I hate it when she says junk like that. I mean I **get **it. I do. You're not using your toothbrush or your textbooks anymore. But if I move all of your stuff then the apartment will just look as empty as I feel and even thinking about stashing your stuff away makes me feel so **nauseous** because I tried packing up all of your smelly running shoes but I just felt like I was **hiding** you and I don't want to hide you I don't want to get rid of you Oh god Wally I don't know what to do.

I don't know what to do without you.

Day 28 P.W.

Dear Wally,

M'gann said that I'm bottling things up inside, she gets all jittery around me when she comes to visit. She says that there's too much emotion around me and she's not sure how to palpate it. I would be surprised if there **wasn't** stuff all bottled up inside of me. I feel so full of rage and sadness **anguish **and emptiness and I don't know how you can feel full of emptiness but by hell I'm doing it and it feels like I'm swallowing an egg every time I take a breath. I tried **not** feeling but I guess I don't know how to do that anymore and it's all **your** fault. I just feel like I'm going to burst and I don't know what to do with myself because its not energy and I don't want to hit something anymore. (Because I did at first, and Conner was more than willing to let me take my frustrations out on him.) I think you would understand it better if I explained it this way.

I feel like a star gone supernova. Or at least on the edge of that. There's huge masses of energy, and there is an impending explosion, but in the end all that really happens is that the star collapses in on itself and the explosion is just the wave of that event.

I feel like a supernova.

Day 33 P.W

Dear Wally,

Dinah says I'm making progress, even though I still refuse to pack up your stuff. I guess that she's right. The sight of your toothbrush in the morning doesn't make me burst into tears. And I can sometimes make it to the evening before I stuff my face into Nelson's fur and give up for the day. And now I'm wondering if progress is such a good thing. I **want** to be okay. I **want **to be able to face your parents without feeling like the worst person in the universe. I **want** to be able to tell Bart that _It's okay_ without crying. I **want **to not feel so broken. But the closer I get to even feeling slightly better, the farther I feel from you.

I want to be able to sleep without nightmares but I still can't imagine the rest of my life without waking in your arms.

I want to be able to cook without searching for you over my shoulder but I don't want to sit down at the table and not have your knees bumping into mine.

I **want** to be able to function but I **can't** let you go.

Day 37 P.W.

Dear West,

I know I haven't written in a while but really it's all your fault anyway. Everything was going as fine as depression can be. But then I found your note. That fucking note. I was just trying to make dinner, but you had to go and meddle with my 'healing' and royally fucked everything up. I cannot even explain in writing how frustrated I am with you. I know that my reaction probably says a fuckton about how well my so called 'healing' has been going, but I'm still going to blame you.

Hear that yet? You are to blame.

And I'll tell everyone that when they finally find me.

I just wanted to make that delicious onion soup, and when I opened the recipe book to read it your note slipped out. That's about when all hell broke loose.

"Artemis's Welcome Home Dinner"

Four words, scrawled in that dumb chicken scratch of your handwriting, with little smiley faces and hearts all over the post-it note. Apparently that's all it takes to break me.

Everything in my memory is kind of hazy and red and angry and tearful after that. But I broke everything. After I tore around our my **our** apartment like a madwoman I got some stuff together and sent a text to Dick before I left. I'm certain that he's taking care of Nelson right now just like I asked, he was going to show up that night anyway.

I'm in the redwood forest now. We went there last year. I'm sure you remember. I liked the trees that made me feel like I'd shrunk and entered Wonderland. You liked the dense ecosystem and the running space. I took a bus and covered my tracks. I've got about three more days at least before anyone finds me. But I like it here. It's peaceful. These woods remind me of you, but its more like a whisper than the screaming that was at our apartment. The trees are still huge and they make me feel small but the wide woods make me feel like I can breath.

Day 38 P.W.

Dear Wally,

The rangers almost came across me this morning. I guess I had a lot of sleep to catch up on. Its easier to sleep when I'm somewhere unfamiliar, when I'm not twisting and turning for your warmth in our bed all night. I'll sleep in a tree tonight, it will be safer.

The woods are still serene and its no longer the past that I'm swarmed with. We'd talked about taking our kids here someday. As a family vacation. Learning the wilderness and the way of the land and survival. I still dream about them. Our kids. I know that they'll never come to be now, but I'll still have them in my heart. A small dream that feels less like a vice and more like a fond future out of reach. I tried to picture them today. Maybe a little girl with blonde hair like me, but bright green eyes like you. And then maybe a boy with your crazy red hair and my gray eyes. Or vice versa. It wouldn't have mattered, they'd be wonderful.

I never told you but I did have a few names picked out for the future. Strong, gems of names that I'd collected over the years. I'll have to think of new ones now if I ever adopt or something. Those names were ours, although you never knew it.

I know it sounds dumb, but I don't think I'll find someone else. I mean, how could there possibly be anyone out there as wonderful as you. Someone who understands understood me so well, who matched me and complimented me as a person. Zatanna had called us soulmates once. I thought it was a sweet sentiment but we both knew there wasn't such a thing. But now that you're gone and I'm here alone, and so, so empty.

I'm starting to think that it was true.

Day 40 P.W.

Dear Wally,

Dinah kept telling me that I needed to find myself in this whole mess. To make sure that I didn't lose myself as I fought with losing you.

I think I understand that now.

I spent all day hiking yesterday, more than the days before. I brought a map from the trail center but I stopped looking at it a few days ago. I was too tired to write, but today I climbed to the top of the tallest tree I could find and I'm just enjoying the view.

Nature, huh, always putting things into perspective. I'd spent so many days on the ground feeling small that I forgot the big picture. I can't live out here forever, even though it's tempting. And Dinah was right when she said I needed to find myself.

It took all of five minutes for my world to fall apart. And I guess now that you're gone I'm not really sure who I am on my own anymore. I've been a **we** for so long that I don't really think I know how to be a **me**. I made a list of all of my favorite things but your love is at the top. It's not really a bad thing. But I'm kind of **lost.**

Day 41 P.W.

Dear Wally,

I kind of wished that I'd brought Nelson along, but I'm still dodging the park rangers. I didn't buy a permit to stay in the park this long because I didn't have enough cash. A credit card could be traced and the League would have been on my tail in the hour.

I slept most of yesterday. The weather was perfect so I hung up a hammock high in the treetops and soaked up the sun. The warmth of the sun reminded me of you, of snuggling into you arms under the covers. I woke up crying, but it wasn't as bad as it has been. Not having you with me used to be a sharp pain. A twisting knife in my heart tugging at every thought. It feels more like an ache now. A throbbing, dull ache that sits in the back of my heart and reminds me of your missing presence, as if my mind would have ever been ignorant to it.

I spent today making arrows, more for something to do than necessity. I thought about our apartment, and your things inside of it, waiting for something to happen. I tried to imagine packing your things up. Your clothes, your nerdy statues, your books. The thought of it used to make me retch, but the bleeding sadness that comes to me now is more bearable.

I'm not hiding you away. I'm not letting you go. I'm not moving on.

I'm moving through.

I'm working through the ache and the emptiness and I'm not leaving you behind as I go. I'll take you with me. Tuck you into a corner of my heart that no one but you will ever have. You'll always be a part of me, how could you not? And as I continue through life I'll draw on our love for strength and for memories and I'll know that you will never really be gone because I'll keep you in my heart and in my mind forever.

Day 44 P.W.

Dear Wally,

I was expecting company soon, no doubt the whole League was looking for me. What I hadn't expected was Dick Grayson to come strolling into my clearing with a weary face and an open hand. He's been the only one who I could stand through this whole miserable ordeal, and I was glad it was him that found me. It wasn't just that he understood a level of my pain, it's that he mourns in the same way. We're both withdrawn and internal with our sadness, and in a way that makes is easier to cope with him.

We trekked back to the entrance of the park in relative silence. I did question how he knew where to find me, turns out the little shit had hid a tracker in my favorite boots. I would drop my phone and my credit cards, but if I was on the run there was no way I'd leave my boots behind. Sometimes he's too clever for his own good.

He had intended to let me stay out in the woods for however long I deemed necessary, but everyone was getting restless with worry at my disappearance and he was too worn raw to lie about the fact that he knew my location. Dick had given me all the solitude he could, but it had come to an end. I'd have to face the rest of the world eventually.

My apartment had been hit by the martian and magician, there was no trace of the wreck I'd left behind. Nelson welcomed me home with such enthusiasm that I started crying again. I hadn't realized what he might have thought being left behind. I don't think he was prepared for the idea that I was coming back.

I'll pack up your boxes sometime in the next few days. Currently I'm being babysat to ensure I don't run off again. Luckily I don't think it will be a problem anymore.

Day 48 P.W.

Dear Wally,

I saw your parents today. You mom offered to take the boxes of your stuff that I'd packed. It was a bit of a debacle. Barry and Iris were there and it'd somehow turned into a sob-fest with Mary pulling out all of her scrapbooks and I thought I could handle it but **boy** she really tested that.

It was the pictures of us that hit me the hardest. Snapshots of us at dances and dates and pictures of us snuggling on the couch that Mary took by sneaking up on us. It was our whole life together pushed between two pieces of cardboard and it was heart wrenching and it was **everything** but it felt so insignificant to see sitting there on a kitchen table. Our five years together were insurmountable. How could it fit in a small cut and paste binder?

It hit me that I'm only 21. So much of relationship was build on year upon years, but there was **so much** of it that we'd spoke of in futures. Our life together. Long, full lives.

I'll have to live that life alone now.

I retreated to your old bedroom where we used to make out and fight over chemical equations. It was too much and I hated breaking down in front of your parents. Barry snuck up on me, although I suspect he had actually spoken up but I couldn't hear him over my tears. He hugged me and all at once it was worse and agonizing. His speedster metabolism and physique makes him far too similar to you in hug form. For a second I almost thought it had been you. But then it wasn't again. It wasn't and it hurt because it was as close as I could get to you.

Day 53 P.W.

Dear Wally,

Dick is up to something. We've been trying to meet up for a meal every couple days to keep each other grounded, but he's started being late and I'm hard pressed to think of where he might need to be. Kaldur told me that he'd quit the team for an indeterminate amount of time. I'd thought that he'd justed needed time, like me. But the unfocused way he's been acting lately tells a different story.

I haven't been pressing him about it, although I have mentioned that maybe he should go take a break like I had. Run away and figure shit out. I know he has more than your loss to deal with, the undercover operation took a lot out of him.

But he's continued to act oddly, and during lunch today he left to take a call. He tried to hide who it was, but he's been off his game and I don't think he was expecting me to snoop. Apparently Dick is in contact with Adam Strange. Its highly suspicious but his distance from our friends means that there isn't anyone I can go to to figure this out.

I guess I'll just keep trying to get the answers out of Dick and hope that he's too distracted to notice.

Day 57 P.W.

Dear Wally,

Dinah wasn't very happy with me for ditching everyone to go solo camping. But I think she forgave me when I told her all the 'progress' I'd made. I still don't like calling it that. I'm not moving from point A to point B. I'm trudging through muck without a map and I don't think there's an appropriate scale to rate where I'm going. But she says that I'm on my way, to wherever it is that I'm going I don't know she honestly speaks in riddles and I feel like i'm talking to the sphynx. One wrong answer and I'm done for.

M'gann can be around me without getting the jitters, and that I feel better about. It's one thing to be a mess yourself, but I didn't like making things difficult for her. She's dealing with your absence too and I was only adding to her troubles.

The other team members are starting to visit me more often. I guess the grapevine told them that I'm less volatile now so I'm free for more visitors to the one archer zoo show. I'll get over it when everyone stops staring at me with such pity. As if I don't **know** how miserable I feel. Its like they feel like they have to shove it in my face that I should be sad. I nearly chased Jaime out with a snarl the other day. He'd come to visit with Bart and I guess I just wasn't in the mood to deal with his strange one-sided conversations. I think Bart explained to him that it wasn't personal, though, so I guess that's good.

It would be easier to feel less like an explosive if people stopped treating me like one.

Day 60 P.W.

Dear Wally,

I finally got Dick to admit that he's up to something. He says that its a science experiment. Something in your "honor". It's such a load of bull. I believe that he's working on an experiment, but the honor thing was a total lie. I know that he's working with Adam Strange, and I found out that he's also involved Karen due to a text he got during dinner the other night. Honestly he's getting sloppy if he wants to really keep this from me. Despite figuring out how to handle my life beyond a day-to-day purpose, I don't have much else to do. So when Mal came to visit, naturally I interrogated him very sweetly. If Karen knows, then Mal knows by association. The ache in my heart reminds me of you but I'm learning to live with the feeling.

Mal protected the secret project valiantly, but he's an amatur and I managed to get out that they're working on some sort of energy redistributor. Mal is less scientifically inclined but it was enough.

Oh, it was enough.

I know what they're doing. And it's pulling me so many different ways that I feel like I'm going to split into pieces. I want to believe that what they're trying to do might be possible. I want to believe it with everything I have. But I don't know if I can handle losing you twice. It's been hard enough the first time. My heart is covered in duct tape and spackle and I'm sure it might shatter at too much jostling. I want to protect myself. I want to protect the fragile shell of a life I've barely rebuilt.

But I want you back **more**.

Dear Artemis,

I can't figure out how to make it up to you. I can't think of any way I can compensate for what you had to go through. I've only been back a week but it's been obvious since day 1 that I have some shit to fix. I know that I wanted to understand, but you definately could have enlightened me without shoving the letters down my shirt. I hadn't gotten a chance to read them until now, or, more accurately, an hour ago. I've cried more in the past week than I ever did before this debacle which Canary thinks is because I have PTSD but I know its mostly just because I know how much I've hurt you and how much I've missed you. You're finally asleep and you've been running on fumes since I got back, you won't say it, but I know you're afraid to sleep. Don't worry, I'll still be here when you wake up. You're beautiful while you sleep, I've always known that, but it's never hit me so hard before now. I've got one hand here writing and the other is on you. I can't seem to let you go because I'm afraid that I'll disappear again and I **can't** leave you. I love you so much and I know I've said it about a million times now but I just want to make sure you know.

I know I told you I don't remember much from the Speed Force, and that's true, but mostly I just haven't figured out how to put it into words. Everything was jumbled and my thoughts didn't run together correctly. I just kept running but I didn't know where I was running **from** or **to**. All I really knew what that I wanted to get back to you. Its the only solid memory I have. Remembering you, your hair, your voice, your smile, and knowing that I'd **left** you and wanting to get back to you. And in the end I think that's how I found my way home.

The letters broke my heart but If I really had to decide, I would do it again. The world needed saving and even if that meant only saving **you** I would do it in a heartbeat. But it wasn't just you. It was you and our friends and our families and everyone and I couldn't let that happen. But Babe I never wanted to leave you behind. I spent months pretending that you were dead, and it hurts to try and think if that had been real. But it's not, and the reassurance it gives me to watch you breathing right now is the only thing holding me together. I feel like the worst person in human history to have put you through this. I don't know how to fix this. And honestly I'm not really sure I can. Luckily you had some words of encouragement for me in the letters. I guess we can't go back. It's not like everything has changed, but things have shifted. I'm mentally stuck 60 days behind, and you've been pulled through 60 days of misery. We can't change that, but we can work through it. And I will never, **ever **leave you again because I love you so **damn much** and dammit Babe I'm crying again and I know we shouldn't talk in definitives like that but I would do anything for you, for **us**. And I know that you aren't 100% right now, but you know that I'd go to the ends of the universe for you, to get back to you (literally), so you can be sure that I'm going to do **everything** in my power to get us through this.

After all, you're Artemis Crock and I'm Wally West.

Together we can make it through anything.

* * *

That's the end. I hope that the ending was happy enough to make up for the terribleness of the rest of it.

Did you cry? I cried so much. Pretty please leave a review and tell me what you think (if you cried).

Love, Veg


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